Physicists embroiled in celebrity row

Simmering tensions in the arcane world of physics have surfaced in a spat between Stephen Hawking, Britain's most famous cosmologist, and one of the country's most respected particle physicists.

Professor Peter Higgs, who predicted the existence of a sub-atomic particle named after him - the Higgs boson - complained that Professor Hawking, of Cambridge University, got away with pronouncements that fellow scientists would not because of his celebrity.

The author of the best selling A brief history of time has become an international icon despite being confined to a wheelchair by a debilitating disease and having to speak through a voice synthesiser.

Professor Higgs, who is retired from Edinburgh University, was reported as saying in the Scotsman: "It is very difficult to engage him [Hawking] in discussion and so he has got away with pronouncements in a way that other people would not. His celebrity status gives him instant credibility".

As his audience at a dinner in Edinburgh must have been aware, one of Professor Hawking's pronouncements was a bet that the Higgs particle - predicted in 1964 - would not be discovered with the Large Electron Positron accelerator at Cern laboratory in Geneva. Professor Hawking won his $100 bet with an American physicist - the LEP closed last year without finding any trace of the Higgs boson, although a more powerful atom-smashing machine is being built to continue the search at Cern. The Higgs particle is supposed to explain why objects have weight and has been the object of huge scientific investment in time and resources. Nobel prizewinner Leon Lederman called it the "God particle" because he believed it to be so fundamental - though it is not a phrase used by Professor Higgs.

In response, Professor Hawking chided his critic's personal tone. "I am surprised by the depth of feeling in Higgs' remarks. I would hope one could discuss scientific issues without personal attacks." He said he had not bet that the Higgs boson did not exist - simply that it would not be discovered by the LEP at Cern.